segunda-feira, 2 de novembro de 2015

##(b) WITTGENSTEINIAN SEMANTICS

Advanced draft for the book "Philosophical Semantics" to be published by Cambridge Scholars Publication.

- 3 -

WITTGENSTEINIAN SEMANTICS

Philosophers constantly see the
method of science before their eyes and are irresistibly tempted to ask and
answer questions the way science does. This tendency is the real source of
metaphysics, and leads the philosopher into complete darkness.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

My aim in this chapter is not so
much to interpret Wittgenstein, as to reconstruct and sometimes revise his
insights on meaning in a way that makes them more powerful and relevant than
they may seem at first sight. What I search for here is what in his own terminology could be called a surveillable representation (übersichtliche Darstellung) of the
grammar of the concept-word ‘meaning’, particularly in regard to representative
language. Before beginning, I would like to off my insights on something we
could call the ‘semantic-cognitive link.’

1. Semantic-cognitive link

The most common viewpoint concerning
the referential mechanism, which I intend to support in this book, is that
referential expressions can only refer because of some intermediary link
able to associate them with their reference. This view originated in classical
antiquity. I advocate the position that this link is of a semantic-cognitive
nature, in the sense that it can always be considered from two contrasting
perspectives: semantic and cognitive
(psychological).[1] From a psychological
perspective, we can refer to the link as an idea, representation,
intention, conception, thought, and cognition (Aristotle
and Locke are examples of semanticists who have adopted this perspective). From
a semantic perspective, the link is more often called a sense, meaning,
use, application, intention, connotation,
concept, informative content, proposition, criterion, criterial or verificational rule (the Stoics,
Frege and Husserl are examples of semanticists of this persuasion). This
can be clarified with a diagram:

At this point, old questions arise:
What is the appropriate link? Which set of terms should be excluded? Should we
exclude psychological terms, so as not to contaminate semantics with empirical
contingency? Or should we abandon a possible commitment to questionable
abstract semantic entities, exchanging them for the more feasible concreteness
of the psychological, able to justify mental causality? Should we read the Critic of Pure Reason from a semantic or
psychological perspective?

Most philosophers have tried to solve this problem by assuming that each
alternative excludes the other. In my view, this is a big mistake. I see this
assumption as a false dilemma that has generated too much philosophical
confusion, for the psychological and semantic perspectives should be seen not
as mutually exclusive alternatives, but as complementary and in some way
inseparable ones.

The source of the illusion that these perspectives are irreconcilable
lies in the fact that the abstract character of the semantic perspective seems
to be committed to some form of realism about universals, while the cognitivist
perspective seems to be committed to some kind of nominalism or particularism
attached to the contingency of the psychological. Since these ontological
commitments are incompatible, the two alternatives also seem incompatible.

However, if we perceive that these ontological commitments are
avoidable, it becomes easier to conclude that the intermediary link between
words and things can be approached in both ways without conflict. For this, we
must realize that when we consider the intermediate link from a semantic
perspective, we are not in any realistic sense committed to the appeal to
abstract entities. What we are doing is only leaving out of consideration the
inescapable fact that meaning is only able to exist only insofar as it is
spatio-temporally embodied in some specific psychological subject.

To clarify the complementarity that I am suggesting: we can consider the
intermediate link as both: (i) a cognitive link, consisting of elements that
must be spatio-temporally realized as fortuitous intentional acts occurring in
specific psychological individuals; (ii) a semantic link, referred to as
something considered inabstraction
from its spatio-temporal instantiations as an intentional act going on in some
particular psychological individual in a specific time and space.

However, this abstraction cannot be made in a sense in which the
semantic link is considered as in some way transcending the realm of specific
psychological and physical beings, since it always needs some form of cognitive
spatio-temporal intentional embodiment in order to be an object of
consideration. Thus, the word ‘abstraction’ means here simply leaving out of
consideration the natural association between a meaning and this or that
specific psychophysical individual who instantiates the meaning, and focusing
on the signs that are able to convey this meaning, insofar as they can be
understood by some other psychological interpreter. This is the only way a
semantic-cognitive link can be clearly made semantically independent of this or
that cognitive instantiation.

A very simple example illustrates my point. When I recognize a patch of
vermilion of cinnabar (a precisely characterized color), it is because the
patch I see matches the memory image of vermilion that I stored in my long-term
memory during earlier experiences. Now, when I speak of a general concept of
vermilion of cinnabar, I am speaking of this image that may be made conscious
in my mind, or of any other image of
this color that may be made conscious in other minds,[2] insofar as these samples
are qualitativelyidentical.[3]

In other words, against the idea that our semantic link is a type that is either a unique abstract
Platonic entity or an abstract Platonic class of tokens qualitatively identical
to one another, what I am proposing is that we conceive the semantic link in
the sense of an arbitrarily chosen model,
namely, as any token that stands for any
other token that is qualitatively identical to it.[4] In short, we can define a
semantic link as:

A semantic link x = any occurrence of x
chosen to serve as a model for any other occurrence of some x that is qualitatively identical to our
model.

Since all these possible occurrences need to be psychological (and
certainly also physical), we don’t need to transcend the domain of the
psycho-physical in order to reach the semantic domain. Moreover, we do not need
to have an instantiation of the semantic type in any specially chosen
psychological particular. What we really need is only that at least one psychological particular, regardless of which one,
should embody the semantic cognition. But this condition, as we will see later,
can easily be accommodated in our commonsense ontological framework of
singularized properties.

This compromise solution is strengthened when we note that even some
sub-items of (a) and (b) show an approximate correspondence to each other.
Thus, the psychological word ‘idea’ has meaning proximity to the semantic words
‘sense’ or ‘meaning’, as well as to ‘concept’; the psychological word
‘representation’ has some meaning proximity to the semantic phrase ‘criterial
rule’; the psychological word ‘mental image’ has meaning proximity to the
semantic phrase ‘criterial configuration’; the psychological phrase ‘occurrence
of thought’ has meaning proximity with the semantic terms ‘proposition’ and ‘content
of thought’.

2. Why meaning cannot be the reference

When we consider the semantic link,
the words that more easily come to mind are ‘sense’ and ‘meaning’ (generally
used as synonyms) as semantic or informational content. But what is sense or
meaning? Perhaps the simplest answer is given by what may be called semantic
referentialism, a doctrine that in its crudest form holds that the meaning
of a linguistic expression is its own reference. This conception either denies
the existence of a semantic link between word and object or minimizes its
importance. Wittgenstein described this way of understanding meaning at the
beginning of his Philosophical
Investigations, where he commented on the so-called ‘Augustinian conception
of language’:

These words, it seems to me, give us
a particular picture of the essence of human language. It is this: individual
words in language name objects – sentences are combinations of such names. – In
this picture of language we find the roots of the following idea: Every word
has a meaning. This meaning is correlated with the word. It is the object for
which the word stands. (Wittgenstein 1984c, part I, sec. 1)

Wittgenstein’s aim in this passage
was to object to semantic referentialism, a theory he championed in his first
work, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. According to his version of
semantic referentialism, when completely analyzed, language proves to be composed
of atomic propositions constituted by atomic names whose meanings would be the
simple and indestructible objects necessarily referred to by them.[5]

Semantic referentialism has some intuitive appeal. After all, it is
usual to explain the meaning of a word by pointing to objects that exemplify
what it means. In our childhood, we learned what the word ‘chair’ means,
because adults showed us examples of this artifact. And we learn the name of a
particular person when this person introduces herself to us with her name. And
as already noted, we learn what a word means or does not mean respectively
through positive and negative examples of its application. All this makes
credible the idea that meaning may be the object actually referred to.
Moreover, this view has the virtue of simplicity: ‘here is the name, there is
its meaning.’[6]

However, there are strong and well-known arguments against this naive
referentialist view of meaning. The most obvious is that you cannot say of a
meaning what you say of an object: if a pickpocket steals my wallet, I do not
say that the meaning of my wallet was stolen, and to say that Abraham Lincoln
was assassinated is not to say that the meaning of his name was assassinated.

Another argument is that many natural terms have the same reference,
while their senses or meanings are obviously different: the singular terms
‘Socrates’ and ‘the husband of Xantippe’ point to the same person, although
they clearly have different meanings. And the opposite seems to be the case with
general terms: the predicate ‘...is fast’ in the statement ‘Bucephalus is fast’
allegedly refers to a singularized property of Alexander’s horse Bucephalus,
and in the sentence ‘Silver is fast’ it allegedly refers to a singularized
property of another horse, Silver. Although they are different horses, so that
the speed of Bucephalus is not qualitatively the same as that of Silver, in
both sentences the word ‘fast’ preserves precisely the same meaning.

The most decisive argument against the referentialist view of meaning,
however, is the most obvious: it concerns the fact that even when a referential
expression has no reference, it does not lose its meaning. The singular term
‘Eldorado’ and the general term ‘phlogiston’ do not have any reference, but by
no means do they lack a meaning. For a long time, semantic referentialism has
been criticized by ordinary language philosophers as based on a primitive and
misleading understanding of the mechanisms of reference. They saw in its
adoption a major source of pseudo-problems, although proponents of metaphysics
of reference have more recently tried to reassert it (see, for instance, Salmon
1993).

3. Failure of Russell’s atomistic
referentialism

Well aware of difficulties like
those presented above, Bertrand Russell tried to defend semantic referentialism
in a minimalist fashion, taking into account only alleged atomic elements of
language and the world. It is instructive to consider his attempt. For Russell,
the meaning of at least some terms – called by him logicallypropernames – would have their objects of
reference acting as their proper meanings. This could be the case, perhaps,
with the word ‘red’. After all, as he noted, because he is unable to see the
color, a blind man is unable to learn its meaning (Russell 1994: 194-5: 201-2).[7]

However, it is untenable that the meaning of any word can be given by
its reference toutcourt. Changing his example a little, suppose
that someone demonstratively applies the word ‘vermilion’ to an occurrence
of vermilion of cinnabar, which is a shade of red that the human eye
practically cannot further subdivide. (In this sense it is a simpler candidate
for ‘simple’ than Russell’s red color, since it does not need to include
gradations and specify its limits.) Could such an occurrence be the meaning?
There is an obvious reason to think that an occurrence of vermilion could not
be its meaning: the absence of any identity criteria. When we consider the
occurrence of vermilion – be it physically thought of as an externally given
spatio-temporal aspect or property, or phenomenally thought of as an
appearance, a sense-datum – the occurrence will always
be different for each new
experience. Thus, if the meaning of ‘vermilion’ is nothing but a detected
occurrence, then each new occurrence of vermilion should be a new and distinct
meaning – an intolerable conclusion!

Russell must have understood this problem, for he found a way to defend
his view against such objections. But, as we will see, the cost of this way out
was that he became entangled in even worse difficulties. He suggested that the
object-meaning of a logically proper name would be something immediately
accessible – such as sense data picked
out by pronouns like ‘this’ or ‘that’ – only as long as we keep these sense data present in consciousness.
This means that the meaning also only lasts as long as our personal experience
of a word’s object of application! (Russell 1994: 201, 203). But this is an
extremely problematic answer, as it is clear that it leads to solipsism.[8] For what criteria of
correction could we apply to fix this meaning, in order to know when the same
word can be reapplied to another occurrence of the sensedata that would at
least qualitatively be the samesensedata? Moreover, how could we insert this fugitive meaning of a
proper name in our common language – a language composed of words whose
meanings are permanently shared by their speakers?

Indeed, in our language, to know the meaning of a word like ‘vermilion’
demands at least the ability to recognize an occurrence of vermilion as being
precisely similar to other occurrences of vermilion. But this recognition is
not included in the idea that the meaning of the word is nothing but the
occurrence of its reference. The concept of a word’s meaning requires
essentially that we should be able to unify
its different applications to the same referent, which is not possible here.

It is true that if the meaning of a word like ‘vermilion’ were the
vermilion-type – understood as an abstract entity common to all
occurrences (tokens) – we would be able to solve the difficulty pointed
out above. But this solution would commit us either to the acceptance of some
form of Platonic-realism, raising justified suspicion of an unintelligible
reification of the type as a topos atopos. Alternatively, one
would need to consider the vermilion-type as being a certain class of
occurrences of sensedata that are precisely similar to each
other. This reduces the risk of realism, but does not eliminate it, since
classes are often seen as abstract entities, and if they are not, then they
need some limiting intention. In addition, classes may be larger or smaller
depending on how many members they have, while the meaning of the word
‘vermilion’ has no proper magnitude, neither increasing nor decreasing.

The most feasible alternative seems to be that we consider the meaning
of ‘vermilion’ as some occurrence of vermilion that we are using as a model
(which could be either a sensedatum or some singularized
property in the outside world, able if necessary to be arbitrarily changed by
another like it) or any other occurrence that is precisely similar to this
model. So, if I recognize what is currently being offered as an occurrence of
vermilion, it may be because I realize that this occurrence is qualitatively
similar to others that were previously given to me as being those of vermilion,
resorting to a model whose copy I have stored in my memory, which gives me an
awareness of it as a color qualitatively identical to colors I have previously
experienced. Thus, recalling the various experienced occurrences of vermilion
{R1, R2... Rn} and the model-copy Rm that I have stored in my memory, I
can say that {R1 = Rm, R2 = Rm... Rn = Rm} and, therefore, that {R1 = Rm = R2}, etc., without resorting to any Platonic entity
or to any multiplication of identities of identities or even to the concept of
an intensionally defined set – problems often thought to burden particularistic
strategies for handling universals.

What this view amounts to is that what we call the meaning of the word
‘vermilion’ must be identified with a referentialconnection, namely, with a rule
that relates cognitive
experiences of occurrences of a color to occurrences of color that we in some
way use as models, in order to produce an awareness of what is experienced as
being the same vermilion color in each case. Moreover, this internal semantic
cognition is produced in association with ‘vermilion’, a word for an entity. In
this way, both a reference and its word turn out to be in principle interpersonally
accessible, once the precise similarity between occurrences allows for
interpersonal accessibility and an implicit agreement necessary to create a
linguistic convention, even if the semantic cognition in itself, as a matter of
fact, is not interpersonally accessible.[9] It should also be pointed
out that the semantic rule that uses memorized models to identify any
new instance of vermilion is independent of this or that particular occurrence
of vermilion, for it only relates to instantiations of possible occurrences
that can satisfy it. This view is one I believe to be workable.

But this view has a price: we see on reflection that by adopting it we
have already left behind us the referentialist conception of meaning. Even to
establish the meaning as simple as that expressed by the word ‘vermilion of
cinnabar’ we need to appeal to something that is more than a rough object of
reference and is independent of it, namely, a semanticrule.

Even if Russell’s semantic referentialism is unsustainable, there is a
lesson to be learned from discussing it. Our last suggestion salvages an
important idea derived from his semantic referentialism, namely, the idea that
the existence of an object of reference is necessary
for the names of objects taken as simple in the context of a linguistic praxis.
Even if we understand the phrase ‘simple object’ as inevitably having a
non-absolute sense (Wittgenstein 1984c, I, sec. 45-48) and restrict it to a
non-decomposable entity in the framework of some linguistic practice, as could
be the case with the sensedatum of red or of red as a trope (a spatio-temporally singularized
property that may be given to experience), the conclusion is that for such ‘simple names’ to acquire meaning they
need to have reference.

This is why, in an important sense, a blind man cannot learn the meaning
of the word ‘red’. Since the color red is in a sense simple[10] and its knowledge demands
acquaintance, and since he cannot have this sensory experience, he cannot
construct and apply the conventional criterial rule responsible for the shared
referential meaning of the word ‘red’. At least in the case of this subrogate
of a logically proper name restricted to a certain linguistic practice, the
existence of some object of reference is indispensable. But this obviously does
not lead to the idea that the word’s reference is its meaning. What it means is
only that in some cases a given object of reference is indispensable for the formation of the semantic rule whereby some
word acquires its referential function.

4. Meaning as a function of use

We shall now move on to a second
candidate for the semantic link: use or application. This candidate was
privileged by Wittgenstein, who suggested that the meaning of a linguistic
expression is its use (Gebrauch) or application (Verwendung). As
he wrote in a famous passage of his Philosophical Investigations:

You can, for a large class of cases
of use of the word ‘meaning’ – if not for all cases of its use – explain it like
this: the meaning of a word is its use in a language. (Wittgenstein 1984c, part
I, sec 43).

This suggestion applies to
both words and sentences. It applies clearly to what has been called the directive meaning:the illocutionary forces of expressions, which establish kinds of
interaction between speaker and hearer in speech acts and can be made explicit
by performative verbs. Together with expressivemeaning, aiming to express internal
psychological states, these two kinds of meaning aren’t really important for us
here, since we are interested in kinds of meaning able to link our linguistic
expressions with their references – referentialmeaning. Our concern here, as was
clear from the start, is the content of declarative sentences, which is the
kind of referential meaning we call
descriptive, factual, cognitive, informative or cognitive meaning, able to link language with the world and to be
endowed with truth-value (Aristotle’s apophanticspeech). These epistemic and
referential meanings should be of philosophical importance because, since by
relating language and world, they should have epistemological and ontological
implications.

However, the identification of meaning with use doesn’t apply so easily
to the informative or cognitive meaning of our expressions. Consider, for
example, a declarative sentence like ‘The tide is high’. It is easy to imagine
an illocutionary use for this, such as: warning, informing. But by doing this
we would revert to meaning as force. According to the theory of speech acts,
all utterances must have the form F(p), where F expresses (explicitly or not) an illocutionary force, and p expresses a propositional content.
Here we are not interested in F, even
if F expresses assertive (illocutionary) force;
we are instead interested in the use of p
as p. But it is not very natural to
speak of the use of a statement
separately from its assertive force. The only sure way of approaching pure
referential and cognitive meaning with an appeal to use consists in producing
an acceptable extension of the
concept of use, suggesting that what is at issue in the case of cognitive
meaning is the use involved in the act of communication by means of which a
speaker intends to share with a hearer his awareness of a real or possible
fact. Thus, when a speaker says ‘The tide is high’, in addition to using this
sentence with the illocutionary force of affirmation, for example, the use may
be thespelling in which a propositional content is expressed, normally
added to assertive force and made to
communicate both, with the intention to reproduce a corresponding judgment (the
same propositional content plus judicative force) in hearers’ minds.

To make clear what is at stake, we can isolate cognitive meaning from
assertive force, as when we employ the Fregean device of expressing a
sentence’s content only as being regarded,
that is, depriving it of any kind of assertive force, as we can do with the
sentence ‘The dog has run away’ in the question ‘Has the dog has run away?’ The
spelling of this sentence expressing epistemic content, even if unasserted – is also a use.

But what about the hearer’s understanding of a statement? The hearer is
surely not using any spelling of words in his understanding of its meaning. In
order to sustain the view that even in this case meaning is use, we need to
resort here to a second and bolder extension of the word ‘use’. It seems in
fact possible to say that we use referential expressions simply by thinking them. When a hearer thinks the
tide is high, it is possible to say that he actually uses this sentence in an
epistemic mode by thinking it, for if the Paul understands the sentence ‘The
tide is high’ or Anne believes that ‘the dog has run away,’ with or without
words, they are repeating this judgment or its content to themself. In normal
communication, this use that a hearer gives to heard words by understanding
them should be identical to what a speaker has in mind when using words to
convey cognitive meaning. Hence, not only the epistemic sense as the speaker’s
thought, but also of the hearer’s thought, could be viewed as internalized epistemic uses, with or
without the addition of assertive force, which in its internalized form is
called a judicativeforce (what Frege would call Urteilskraft). Finally, if Plato was
right that discursive thought is ‘a silent dialogue of the soul with itself’,
we can generalize this process of internalization and consider any cognitive
act associated with language as use, even without being associated with
communicative action.[11] We can call this the epistemic
use of an expression, of which assertive and judicative forces are
dispensable complementary elements.

It is easy to question the relevance of the two proposed extensions of
the meaning of the word ‘use’ that I am employing in order to save the view of
meaning as a function of use: though they are not wrong or confusing, they can
be considered too cumbersome to be necessary. However, as will become clear,
the reason why Wittgenstein identified meaning with use was a pragmatic
advantage, namely, that of locating meaning in its proper place from the start:
the normal linguistic praxis – the concrete speech-act situation – even in the
usual mental praxis of thinking with words. This enables us to individuate the
meaning of an expression in its natural place, where it exercises its real
function, enabling us in this way to achieve the highest level of interpersonal
corrigibility, not excluding or distorting anything. And this is what
Wittgenstein’s identification of meaning with use is all about: It allows us to
individuate meanings precisely as they are, while in doing philosophy we are
too often prone to exempt and distort meanings in order to produce illusory
insights. In this sense the maxim that meaning is use can help us in practicing
what Wittgenstein called philosophy as therapy, which aims to untie the knots
of thought tied by philosophers, insofar as it brings our words back from their
metaphysical holidays to their daily work (Wittgenstein 1984c, part I, sec
116).

5. Meaning as a kind of rule

A more basic difficulty arises when
we understand that the identification of meaning with use cannot be one of
meaning and episodicusetout
court, namely, a mere spatio-temporal occurrence
(token) of a linguistic expression, as each occurrence differs from others
in its spatio-temporal location. If this were the case, each new occurrence
would have a new meaning, which would spark a semantic catastrophe by making
the number of meanings of any linguistic expression unlimited.

There is, however, an intuitive alternative. We can understand the words
‘use’ (Gebrauch) or ‘application’ (Verwendung) as a way of use (Gebrauchsweise) or a way of application (Verwendungsweise),
since the same word can be used many times in the same way. But what is the way
of use? Well, it doesn’t seem to be anything other than
something-with-the-form-of-a-rule (etwas Regelartiges) that commands
episodic uses. Wittgenstein himself came to that conclusion in an important,
though less well known passage of his last work, On Certainty:

The meaning of a word is its mode
of application (Art der Verwendung) ... Hence, there is a correspondence
between the concepts of ‘meaning’ and ‘rule’. (Wittgenstein 1984a, sec. 61-62)

In fact, to use a word meaningfully
is to use it in accordance with its mode or way of use or application, it is to
use it correctly, and to use an expression correctly, in the right way, is to
use it in accordance with those rules that give it its meaning. By analogy, we
can say that we use a screwdriver according to its way of use when we use it
correctly, according to a rule, for instance, turning it clockwise in order to
tighten a screw. Consider the following two examples of ways of use that I take
from the linguee online dictionary:

Way of Use: Apply several times to the skin
and rub in for several
minutes with a circular motion, until completely absorbed.

Way of Use: To color and cover up grey hair,
we recommend 20 ml. 6% of a cream oxidizing agent in the proportion of 1 + 1.

Of course, what the ‘way of use’ presents is a rule or sequence or
combination of rules for correct use of material. Now we see clearly that
meaning can only be identified with use in the sense of something-of-the-kind-of-a-rule
determining episodic uses. And what holds in general for a word’s use also
holds here for epistemic or referential use. In fact, the identification
between meaningfulness and rule is more primitive. Consider the following two
signs: ‘0O0’ and ‘Oà’. The second seems to us more
‘meaningful’, since we have the habit to link it with a rule pointing to a
direction. Rules are the intrinsic source of meaningfulness.

6. Meaning as combinations of rules

However, why does Wittgenstein
prefer to saythat meaning is determined by rules? Why can’t the
meaning of our linguistic expressions be identified with rules simpliciter?
In my view, at least part of the answer was also approached by him with his
analogy between language and calculation. (Wittgenstein 1984f: 168; 1982: 96-97). This understanding is
reinforced by the many otherwise unjustified considerations in his Brown
Book of how complex sequences of rules could be followed in relatively
simple language games, understood as systems of rules. In use, linguistic expressions normally involve calculations,
which should be understood as nothing more than combinations of conventional rules. And the cognitive meanings that
these expressions have can consist essentially in the combinations of more or
less implicit and automatized semantic conventions whose knowledge is tacitly
shared among speakers.

Arithmetic can serve as an illustration here. If the meaning of a
mathematical proposition is constituted by its proof, considering that the
proof is a combination of rules, this meaning is also a combination of rules.
Some people can do the multiplication ‘120 . 30 = 3,600’, for instance, by
combining three rules, first multiplying 100 by 30, then multiplying 30 by 20,
and finally adding 3,000 and 600 to get the result 3,600. The meaning,
understood as the cognitive content of multiplying ‘120 x 30 = 3,600’,
would be given by this and other methods of calculation, which together would
amount to essentially the same general meaning, insofar as they proceed in
different but complementary ways, i.e., beginning at the same starting point
and reaching the same result, in some cases by direct application of a single
rule.

We see that what we called something-of-the-kind-of-a-rule can be
understood as possible combinations of rules that bring us to a certain result.
The meaning of a linguistic expression must also be the same as (i) a specificrule or (ii) one or more combinations of rules
that determine a correct episodic use of the rules – which could be called a rule-complex
(Regelkomplex). And the cognitive
meaning of a linguistic expression is a rule or possible rule-complex that when
applied or satisfied brings about a cognition of some state of affairs. – In
this book, I will often use ‘rule’ in a broad sense that includes combinations
of rules or rule-complexes. This is ultimately a justified extension of the
term ‘rule’, since combinations of rules that produce the same results have the
same functions as rules. Although irreducible to shared conventions, such
combinations can still be seen as conventionallygrounded, since they are constituted
by elementary rules, namely, those usually established by convention. Thus,
when someone says, as Wittgenstein sometimes does, that meaning is determined
by rules, what can be reasonably meant by this is that cognitive meaning is the
application of some rule-complex enabling us to reach some cognitive result,
and nothing more.

Since we are interested in the problem of reference, the meaning that
will be considered will almost always be epistemic or referential, that is,
concerning semantic-cognitive rules responsible for our linguistic awareness of
what can be objectively given, which are also criterialrules. So, we
are dealing with cognitive criterial rules responsible for the epistemic or
referential significance of declarative sentences. Criteria are, in
Wittgenstein’s terms, ‘what confers to our words their ordinary meanings,’
(Wittgenstein 1958: 57). For him these semantic-cognitive rules are based on
criteria, which are in a sense conditions that must be independently given in
order to make us realize that something is the case. Using Wittgenstein’s own
example, if someone says ‘It’s raining’ and this statement is true, this
involves applying a criterial rule, a rule which requires that certain
conditions must be given – say, drops of water falling from the sky – so that a
cognition follows – say, awareness that it’s raining. And this resulting
awareness, the cognition, could be understood, as already suggested at the end
of the first chapter, as the availability to the system of what results from
what we may consider as (effectively or only possibly) satisfied criterial
conditions.

However, if an analysis of the appeal to use leads us to cognitive
reference-rules, why appeal to use? Why not just start with an investigation of
these rules and their combinations? The answer was already given. Language is
primarily an instrument of action, and meaning, cognitive or not, is there to
facilitate action. Attention to correct use helps us to individuate meaning and
to find the real cognitive-criterial rules or combinations of rules that must
of necessity be applied in order to confer meaning.

We can further elucidate this by appealing to a metaphor: when a post
office sends a letter it has general indications as to the addressee’s state,
city, and locality. These general indications can be compared with the
grammatical meaning of a sentence. Although necessary, they are insufficient,
as too many other sentences have the same grammatical meaning, because too many
other addressees live in the same state and city. To reduce this vagueness,
mail carriers also need the name of the street, the building or house number
and if applicable the addressee’s apartment number. Without these singularizing
details, it is impossible to deliver mail to its proper destination. The same
holds for cognitive meaning. What is decisive is the way of applying our
expressions in the given context – not only the concrete, but also the whole
discursive context, such as we find in philosophical texts. What an appeal to
use does is to lead us to semantic details necessary to find what really
matters. In other words: the more general traits of an expression’s way of use
are less relevant, since they are common to many other expressions and for this
reason are not able to individuate meanings. What matters at most are the more
specific traits of meaning: ways of use. These are traits that expressions can
only gain in contexts of application. Consequently, these can only be
completely explored in linguistic praxis. For this reason, it is so important
to explicitly consider occasions of use. These can be responsible for subtle
semantic variations that an expression can get in different concrete discursive
contexts. As we will see, consideration of such subtle semantic variations is
of particular importance for correcting or criticizing language, since it
enables us to correct misconceptions arising from philosophical attempts to use
words beyond the limits of meaningful language. Particularly serious cases of
overstepping the limits are ones involving the metaphysics of reference, which
in most cases result in errors by systematically confusing semantic elements
selected from linguistic praxis.

7. Meanings and language games

There is more to be said about
meaning as a function of use. The first thing to be noted is that a linguistic
expression only makes sense when used within a system of rules. Here again we
may appeal to a metaphor. We can compare a linguistic expression with a chess
piece, and its use with a move in playing chess. When you move a chess piece,
the meaning of the move is not given only by the rule that governs the piece’s
move. What the move really means in the important sense of the word will depend
on the game situation. It will be given by the contextually determined tactic,
by the calculation of possible combinations of rules in anticipation of
possible moves by the opponent and responses that could be made. This is a
calculation made in playing chess and could be different in a different game,
even if the pieces were the same.

Something not very dissimilar occurs with linguistic use. The linguistic
rules governing what Wittgenstein called ‘superficial grammar’ could be
compared with the rules for moving chess pieces. But grammatical rules – even
those of some logical grammar – may not be what really matters. What really
matters are often rules or rule-complexes belonging to what Wittgenstein called
‘deep grammar’ (1984c I, sec. 668), which may have more resemblance to semantic
rules like those we exemplified before (for the words ‘Aristotle’ and ‘chair’)
that combined justify moves depending on chess players’ tactical calculations,
particularly when we consider what takes place in a dialogic speech.

As an example, one knows that the sentence ‘Caesar visited Calpurnia’ is
grammatically correct, and one may even know that its logical form is aRb. But this will be of no help if one
does not know who Caesar and Calpurnia were, what relationship they had, and
cannot say when or why he could have visited her. Superficial grammar (or
syntax) gives expression to a grammatical sense that is often the same for
semantically different sentences. The rules and combinations of rules that
constitute what is meant by a linguistic expression are more flexible, changing
in accordance with the concrete and linguistic context.

Furthermore, in the same way that the rules responsible for a strategic
move in chess depend on a context provided by the system of rules that constitutes
the game of chess, the rules determining the application of linguistic
expressions are able to produce meaningful utterances only when combined within
a systemofrules,
called by Wittgenstein a language game (Sprachspiel) or a linguisticpractice (sprachliche Praxis). Language games can be
characterized as linguistic systems that typically include syntactic,
semantic and pragmatic rules. Examples of language games given by
Wittgenstein are:

Giving orders and acting according
to them, describing an object by its appearance or measures, informing…
speculating about an event, making and testing hypotheses… making up a story,
reading… solving a riddle, telling a joke, describing a landscape, acting,
asking, thanking, cursing, greeting, praying, etc. (Wittgenstein 1984c, sec,
23)

But he also uses the same idea in a wider sense, pointing to more
extended domains of language like:

The language of colors, the language
of proper names, or even the important
‘knowing games’ from On Certainty,
like the game of doubt and the languages of history, physics, chemistry and
arithmetic. (Costa 1990: 50)

That is: it seems that almost any chunk of our language can be seen as a
language game. Language games include themselves, one within another, like the
case of Cantor’s theory of infinite numbers within the language of mathematics,
and they can partially overlap one another, as when someone describes a
scenario and by this means also tells a joke, insofar as we remain able to
distinguish them (Wittgenstein 1984c, sec. 46-48). Fundamental is only that
they remain interpersonally distinguishable.

The concept of language game or linguistic practice contains the concept
of the speech act, systematically studied by J. L. Austin and John Searle, but
it is much wider. This is why Wittgenstein was not mistaken when he wrote that
there are countless language games (1984c I, sec. 23).

By making the meanings of expressions the results of combinations of
rules belonging to rule systems typified by language games, Wittgenstein was
endorsing what was later called semanticmolecularism: what we call the
meaning of an expression does not depend on the expression in isolation
(semantic atomism), nor on its insertion in language as a whole (semantic
holism), but essentially on the context of linguistic practice in which it is
located (molecular subsystem of language).

Finally, it is a mistake to believe that meaning is a matter of all or
nothing. It is more plausible to think that when used according to the rules of
a language game some part of a word’s meaning extends to the group of games to
which this game belongs, gradually merging with them.

In support of the idea that we use and give meaning to our expressions
in language games, in the Brown Book
Wittgenstein described natural language as a great nebula of language games, and later in the Philosophical Investigations, he compared it to a great old city:

The language of the adult presents
itself to our eyes as a massive nebula, ordinary language, surrounded by more
or less defined language games, which are technical languages. (Wittgenstein
1984e: 122)

Our language can be seen as an
ancient city: a maze of little streets and squares, of old and new houses, and
of houses with additions from various periods; and this surrounded by a
multitude of new boroughs, with straight, regular streets and uniform houses.
(Wittgenstein 1984c, sec. 18)

The nebula, the city, begins with
what was built in its original center: the practices of ordinary language,
expressing our ordinary commonsense wisdom. To this, there come new insights,
like those arising with the emergence of new scientific fields. As with games,
the great old city can be subdivided in many distinct ways, one part including
another, or one overlapping another.

There is a noteworthy relation of dependence here: learning and teaching
these new scientific practices, even the possibility of their understanding and
creation, depends on prior acquisition of more basic practices governing
ordinary life. This coheres with our principle of the primacy of modest common
sense: Rejection of its proper assumptions by means of science is a
questionable approach, and it is logically incoherent to reject them as a whole
based on science.

A question that now arises is: in such circumstances, what criteria
would we have for identifying meaning variations, or, in other words, what
criteria would we have for identifying the language game in which an expression
is used or even misused? Considering that language can be subdivided in
multiple and varied ways, it seems that we can apply different criteria to the
same move, insofar as we are able to interpersonally identify and share the
criteria we are applying... But in this case, what guides us in choosing a
criterion? Is this identification really possible?

My suggestion is that the identification of a language game under whose
criteria a word is being used involves (i) the relevant factual and linguistic context in which the word is used,
together with (ii) the speaker’sintention in using the word, insofar as
this intention can be made interpersonally clear, even if only in a tacit way.
It seems that these two factors allow the identification of the language game
in which a speaker is using a linguistic expression as follows: if a speaker
succeeds in giving a clear idea of the context and aim he has in using an
expression, he is identifying the system of linguistic rules, the relevant
language game for determining how he is using the expression, that is, the
intended rules constitutive of its meaning. And if a hearer correctly
identifies the speaker’s context and intentions, he identifies the language
game the speaker has in mind and will be able to understand correctly what the
speaker means. (For example, if I tell my students that Aristotle said
friendship is only possible among equals, the context shows everyone that I am
playing a game of naming in which I intend to lecture on the famous Greek
philosopher and not about some homonym.)

8. Meaning and form of life

There is a last important concept in
the understanding of Wittgenstein’s explanation of meaning. The linguistic
practices that form the nebula find their ultimate raisond’être as
constituents of what Wittgenstein called a form
of life (Lebensform). As he wrote:

…the word ‘language game’ is used
here to emphasize the fact that speaking a
language is part of an activity, or of a form of life. (Wittgenstein 1984c, I,
sec. 23)

Right or false is what human beings
say; and in the language they agree on. This is no agreement in opinions, but
in form of life. (Wittgenstein 1984c, I, sec. 241)

What is taken for granted, the
given, we could say, are forms of life (Wittgenstein 1984c, II: 572)

In arriving at this idea,
Wittgenstein was probably influenced by an article by the great anthropologist
Bronislaw Malinowski, who suggested that in order to learn the language of a
primitive people one needs to share life with them in their society (Malinowski
1989). One example used by Malinowski to illustrate this point can be useful
here: when fishermen in the Trobriand Islands use the phrase ‘paddling in a
place’, they mean they are navigating close to an island village, and the
waters around the islands are so deep that it is not possible to use a pole to
propel the canoe, so they need to paddle their boats to reach the village. Only
by knowing the speakers’ life circumstances can we find the information needed
to understand what their expressions mean.

The relevance of much that Wittgenstein wrote consists in his having
seen the importance and comprehensiveness of certain ideas. For him the phrase
‘form of life’ means theway of
life in a society. More precisely: the whole complex of regularities that
govern the lives of people in a social environment considered in its totality.

We can compare the idea of a form of life with what is involved in two
technical terms introduced by J. R. Searle, the network of meanings
involved in the determination of an intention,
which is linked with the background of abilities, skills, dispositions
and ways of doing things (Searle 1983, ch. 5). Though including what Searle
means by network and background, the concept of form of life is more
comprehensive, since even the landscape in which natives live or lived should
be comprehended by the concept and may have an influence on the meaning.

More auspicious may be a comparison between the concept of form of life
and Husserl’s concept of life-world (Lebenswelt), which for the latter author
can be the whole of our shared communal
world of human activity (Husserl 1954, Vol. VI: 105 f.). For Husserl, the
life-world, which can be subdivided into different life-worlds or home-worlds (Heimwelten), forms the holistic framework within which all
knowledge is acquired, serving therefore as the ultimate foundation of all
human cultural endeavors, gradually extending into scientific ones.
Furthermore, although there are different life-worlds, they must have basic
common aspects (like spatio-temporality, materiality, life, birth, death,
instincts, hunger, thirst, etc.).

Wittgenstein would probably share this view at least in its
non-theoretical aspects. It is helpful to see that there must be something
common in the most basic levels of our different forms of life. For this
communality should be what allows us to be transplanted into a different form
of life and nonetheless be able to learn their languages, assuming that we all
share a common human nature (this is a generally uncontroversial assumption).

9. Tying the threads together

We can now summarize. Language
appears in Wittgenstein’s philosophy as an immensely complex system of
syntactic, semantic and pragmatic rules: a system we can subdivide in many ways
into subsystems that are called languages, linguistic practices and language
games, which are in turn rooted in a wider system, the life-form, which is made
up of regularities that determine the lives of people in a society. Linguistic
practices constituting our ordinary language originate spontaneously from our
way of life and depend on it. Here again, we see that creating and learning the
specialized language games of science is only possible because of the
assumption of more central practices of ordinary language that are ultimately
dependent on life forms. This is also why a computer will never be able to give
meaning to the signs with which it operates: a silicon-based machine is a
by-product of a life-form and not a biological agent naturally growing within
it.

We can synthesize the our considerations so far in the following
formula:

A meaning of an expression x = any episodic use of x made in accordance with the rules of a
proper linguistic practice (the language game) rooted in a certain life form.[12]

This is a characterization of
meaning as something that belongs to the praxis of language as it is understood
and to our extensions of the concept of use as what is meant in human mental
acts. This assimilation of cognitive meaning to action by means of the extended
notion of use as a rule-in-its-application is what makes it unnecessary to
hypostasize semantic rules as abstract objects. Meaning is what we think of or
speak about as being meaningful; and what we think or speak is meaningful
insofar as it is correctly used, namely, used in accordance with the
meaning-rules of linguistic practice rooted in our life form.

With this, I believe that we have achieved, based on Wittgenstein’s
views, a vague but plausible and minimally distorted surveillable
representation of the grammar of the concept of meaning. This kind of
representation is particularly important because it plays a role as a semantic
foundation for philosophy as therapy or critic of language.

This is also why a surveillable representation of the grammar of meaning
is central to Wittgenstein’s later thought: it is the sustaining core of his
philosophy, as much as the doctrine of ideas was the sustaining core of Plato’s
philosophy.

10. Criteria and symptoms again

Another important distinction that
we owe to Wittgenstein, already introduced in the first chapter of this book,
is the distinction between criteria
and symptoms. Semantic-cognitive
rules can be seen as criterial rules. Criterial rules are ones based on conditions
called criteria. As we have also noted, words like ‘criteria’, ‘symptoms’ and
‘conditions’ involve process-product ambiguity. Often they mean the internal
conditions belonging to the semantic-cognitive rule (criterial rule) that we
are able to consider independently of its effective application in the world.
But criteria can also mean the cognitively independent external conditions
that, once really given, make possible the application of a semantic-cognitive
rule. When criteria are understood in this last way, they can be seen as
singularized properties or tropes or configurations of them, as we will see.
Moreover, as we will also see, in this last sense they are seen as
necessitating the application of the semantic-cognitive rule and, when this rule
is the verifiability rule of a statement, they are what necessitate its truth –
what we today call its truthmaker.

There is, as we have also noted, a fundamental difference between
criteria and symptoms. Criteria are conditions that by convention, once
accepted as really given, warrant for
us the application of a semantic-cognitive rule; symptoms, on the other hand,
are conditions that by convention once accepted as really given make the
application of a semantic-cognitive rule only more or less probable. Criteria
should establish the necessary and sufficient conditions for the application of
an expression. Because of this, Wittgenstein also called them definitionalcriteria; they are primary
criteria, while symptoms are also called secondary
criteria (Wittgenstein (ed.) 2001: 28).

One example makes the distinction clear: a criterion for the application
of the predicate word ‘malaria’ is actually finding a bacterium – plasmodium falciparum – in a patient’s
blood. If we accept that we have found this, by definition we are warranted in
saying that in some way the patient has malaria. But if all we find is that the
person has cyclically high fever, we have a symptom of malaria, something that
makes it only probable that the patient has contracted this disease.

Insofar as criteria are understood as internal constitutive conditions
of the semantic-cognitive rules for the referential use of a conceptual word,
they must belong to its meaning, since these rules (whether effectively applied
or only cognitively regarded) are constitutive of meaning. When Wittgenstein
wrote that criteria ‘give words their common meanings’ (Wittgenstein 1986: 57),
he must have had in mind criterial rules.

Finally, criteria have the role of criteria only in the context of the
language games to which they belong. This is the main reason why Wittgenstein
says that there can be a grammatical oscillation between criteria and symptoms:
with changes in linguistic practice, criteria can become symptoms and vice
versa (Wittgensteien 1983c, sec. 79, 354). That is: the same condition that
works as a criterion in one practice can serve only as a symptom in another
practice and vice versa. And similar changes can also occur as a result of the
evolution of language, which may change our conventions, often turning criteria
into symptoms and replacing them with new conditions.

The distinction between criteria and symptoms is also important for the
critique of language. Philosophers are all too often inclined to confuse
criteria with symptoms. To give a very simple example, consider peoples’ facial
features and bodies. These are the physical characteristics by means of which
we immediately identify people we know. At first sight, it seems that they are
the real criteria for the identification of persons. But obviously they aren’t.
If a person, as happens in fairy tales, were transformed into a donkey, but
continued to behave no differently than before, conversing with us and in full
possession of her memories and abilities, we would still cling to the idea that
she remained the same person, even though in a different body. This and other
similar thought-experiments show that people’s bodily appearances are not
primary criteria at all, but only useful symptoms that make their
identification very probable. To find the ultimate criteria of personal
identity is still today a controversial philosophical problem.[13]

11. Transgressions of the internal limits of language

In the Tractatus, Wittgenstein was interested in ascertaining what David
Pears called the external limits of
language and its transgressions (1970, ch. 5). This is relatively easy to spot:
a logical contradiction is an external transgression. However, he came to see
that most philosophical confusions are caused by the more subtle transgressions
of the internal limits of language.
These transgressions happen because our expressions can be used in different
linguistic practices, acquiring in this way more or less subtle changes in
meaning. As Wittgenstein wrote, ‘The place of a word in grammar is its meaning’
(1984d, sec. 23), a place that is changeable and cannot be fixed beforehand.
Now, when an expression is used simultaneously in different practices, where it
should receive a different meaning or meaning-nuance, it turns out to be easier
to confuse what we mean with it.

In Wittgenstein’s philosophy we can find two forms of confusion or
misleading uses of expressions, which we may call equivocity and hypostasis.[14]

These two forms of transgression have a striking similarity to the
psychoanalytic distinction between the two mechanisms of the primaryprocess (primäre Vorgang),
called by Sigmund Freud deslocation (Verschiebung) and condensation (Verdichtung).
Hence, it is interesting to explain this process here very briefly. According
to Freud, our thought can involve two distinct processes: the secondaryprocess (sekundäre Vorgang)
and the primaryprocess (primäre Vorgang).
The secondary process is the typically conscious process of rational thought,
like scientific thought. In this process, affective or emotional charges (Besetzungen) are firmly associated with
their respective representations (Vorstellungen).
The primary process, on the other hand, is found in dreams, neurotic symptoms,
humor, artistic creations, religion, and… philosophy. In these cases, emotional
charges are not rigidly associated with their respective representations (or
thoughts) and can be transferred to different representations, insofar as the
latter can be associated with the former representations. The primary process
is what produces the conscious manifestation of unconscious or pre-conscious
thoughts, in the latter case understood as non-repressed and consequently
always able to become conscious.

The two fundamental mechanisms of the primary process, displacement and
condensation, are more clearly illuminated in Freud’s famous explanation
of how dreams are produced (Freud 1900, ch. 7).

Displacement occurs when the emotional charge of a repressed
representation is transferred to another representation, which is able to elude
censorship and become conscious, thereby releasing its endopsychic tension into
consciousness. We can say that representation R1, repressed and therefore
unable to become conscious, has its charge transferred to representation R2,
able to evade censorship and become conscious. A Freudian example of
displacement is the story of a Jewish woman who couldn’t marry the man she
loved because he was a Christian. However, she dreamed that she gave him her
comb. This is her conscious representation in the dream; but her unconscious,
the repressed representation is the idea of giving herself to him in love. The
emotional charge passes from the repressed representation to the innocuous one,
which makes it possible for the charge to be released in the dreamer’s
consciousness, diminishing the endo-psychic tension.

The mechanism of condensation is somewhat different. Here a
representation (or group of interrelated representations) transfers its
affective charges to a partial representation belonging to it, which becomes
liberated in consciousness. We can represent this by saying that the charges
belonging to the representations {R1, R2… Rn} are usually condensed in one of
them, say, R2, which enters into consciousness, in this way allowing the
release of charges. One example of condensation would be a case in which the
woman dreams that the man she loves forgot his scarf at her home... The scarf
is part of the whole representation of the man, and the emotional charge
associated with the whole is condensed in this partial representation and
released into consciousness. It is worth remembering that according to Freud,
displacement requires full unconsciousness by being a product of repression,
while condensation requires only pre-consciousness, since it isn’t necessarily
a product of repression.

Now, an investigation of the two mechanisms by which the internal limits
of language are transgressed brings into sharper focus the sometimes noted
relation between philosophy as therapy and psychoanalysis (e.g. Wisdom 1953),
for it shows that philosophical activity is affected not only by a lack of
semantic awareness, but also by affirmative unconscious motivations.

Let’s see now how the primary process works in cases of confusion
arising from linguistic transgressions of normal uses of expressions. By using
an expression equivocally, a philosopher shifts the use of this expression,
applying it in the context of a linguistic practice B, though following the
semantic rules that this expression should have in linguistic practice A. This equivocity amounts to displacement,
since the emotional charges associated with the first use are transferred to a
new representation. On the other hand – in what we call hypostasis – the philosopher tries to apply an expression that can
be used in two or more linguistic practices, say, A, B and C simultaneously in
a certain context, as if there were a single linguistic practice able to join
these different uses, adding their emotional charges, when in fact this
practice does not exist.

Philosophical examples of these mechanisms can be complicated and
difficult to describe, since philosophers, being masters of deception (and
self-deception), construct their spider webs of far more abstract and complex
material than ordinary mortal dreamers. Hence, I will consider only two very
simple cases.

For the case of displacement, consider the following skeptical paradox
attributed to the Megarian philosopher Stilpo, denying the possibility of
predication. For Stilpo, if I say that Socrates is wise, this is a
contradiction, because I am denying that Socrates is Socrates. That is: we can
say of something that it is what it is, but if we want to say something more
than this, we fall into a contradiction, for we are denying that it is what it
is… All that we can do is to express the principle of identity or remain
silent.

I can explain Stilpo’s fallacy as due to a failure to distinguish the
‘is’ of predication from the ‘is’ of identity. We can distinguish linguistic
practices (contexts) of type A – in which the verb ‘to be’ works as a copula,
introducing the predicate (e.g., ‘Socrates is wise’) – from linguistic
practices of type B – in which the verb ‘to be’ is used in the sense of
identity (e.g., ‘Socrates is
Socrates’). However, Stilpo uses the verb ‘to be’ as having only one correct
use: that which is found in practices of type B. As a result, each time he
observes people using the verb ‘to be’ in practice A, he understands their use
as following the rule of use that the verb has in practice B – meaning ‘is the
same as’ – in this way equivocally and systematically displacing the real use
from practice A to practice B. Since Stilpo realizes that the way of use of
practice B is contradictory in the context of A, he falsely concludes that
predication is impossible.

I will now offer an example of hypostasis in philosophy. Consider a
suggestion I heard from a philosopher, according to whom the verb ‘to be’ must
have a truly originary sense, which is not only that of copula, but also of
identity and of existence. To justify this, he considered the sentence: ‘To be
is to be’ (Sein ist Sein). This
sentence says not only that ‘to be’ has the property of being, but also that
‘to be’ is the same as ‘to be’, and finally that ‘to be’ has the property of
existing (of being).

Against this follie metaphysique,
a criticic of language will tell us that it is much more plausible to think
that what the philosopher seeks with the ‘is’ in the sentence ‘To be is to be’,
although grammatically correct, is semantically only an incoherent mixture of
different senses of the verb ‘to be’ which were created for different practical
purposes. It is a hypostasis: a condensation mixing three different modes of
use or meanings of the same word from three actually distinct practices: the
predicative practice A, the identifying practice B, and the practice of
attributing existence C. In the best case, this is multiple ambiguity; but
since the philosopher is claiming to have discovered a way to achieve originary
meaning, his diagnostic is merely incoherence and illusion.

I give these explanations because in criticizing the metaphysics of
reference, we very often denounce equivocity and hypostasis. Wittgenstein
suggested that philosophical maladies have their origins in a ‘craving
for generality’; in efforts to achieve generalization without enough fundament,
very often reductively influenced by the greater success of natural science
(Wittgenstein 1966: 1956). We can now suggest that here as well the frequent
case of equivocity may work as a compensatory byproduct of repressing some kind
of undesirable awareness.

An additional point is that striving for generalization is inherent in
the philosophical endeavor (at least as revisionary metaphysics) even if it may
be ultimately doomed to fail. This is, I think, the reason why Wittgenstein’s
concession that the unavoidable philosophical bumps up against the walls of
language has the mark of profundity (Wittgenstein 1984c, sec. 111). The reason
for this is that these confusions, when effective, have the potential to point
to relevant issues after forcing us to search for the right way out of the
illusions they produce in us. As I intend to show, much of the
metaphysics of reference is grounded upon the forms of confusion described
above, particularly equivocation (displacement), and can be the object of a
critique of language.

12. The form of the semantic-cognitive rules

In an approximative way, we can now
expose the general form of a cognitive or criterial semantic rule (basically
the identifying rule of singular terms, the attributive rule of general terms,
and the verificational rule of statements) as being constituted, on one hand by
a relation that can be summarized in the sign ‘~>’, which means either an
inductive inference (for empirical knowledge) or a deductive inference (for
logico-conceptual knowledge). By ‘C’ we mean the criteria assumed as satisfied and, furthermore, by the result
‘R’ we mean the meaning-awareness.
Here is the basic schema:

C ~> R

This schema of a semantic-cognitive rule is very simplified, for the
criteria can be multiple, varied and staggered in complex procedures. The
satisfaction (always in the context of some practice) of a (definitional)
criterium under adequate circumstances gives place to the occurrence of the
meaning-awareness R, which in the case of a statement could be expressed by a
sentence. The epistemic content or meaning or sense is the whole procedure of
rule-following, including still unverified criteria insofar as they also belong
to the rule.

Complementing what was said, there is a second cognitive element of the
semantic-cognitive rule, which is our awareness
of the consequences of the satisfied content – of the rule (or
rule-complex), This is what I suggest to be explainable by theories of
consciousness such as those explained at the end of chapter 2. It is, for
instance, what has been called the ‘availability of content to reasoning and
action’ (Block), the ‘transmission of content for the mind’s global workspace’
(Baars), ‘brain celebrity’ (Dennett), etc. It is the consciousness of a
meaningful reference.

Calling the meaning or epistemic content [{C1 ˅ C2 ˅… ˅ Cn} ~> R],
where each criterion is seen as sufficient for R, and calling E its cognitive
effect (awareness or transmission of content to the system…), we can summarize
the usual form of a semantic-cognitive rule added to its conscious effects as
follows:

[{C1 ˅ C2 ˅… ˅ Cn} ~> R] ~> E

In order to better understand the
rule, suppose that C1 and C2 are assumed criteria for the epistemic result R
expressed by the statement ‘Caesar visited Calpurnia.’ The conclusion that
Caesar visited Calpurnia is an occurrence or use that can be spelt out or only
silently thought.[15] Now, we can consider three
situations. (a) When we take this R in isolation from any criterion for
identifying Caesar or Calpurnia; then what we get is only grammatical meaning.
(b) When we add informative content to R when it is at least potentially
associated with some conventional procedure from which it results, for instance
C1 ~> R, then we have the semantic-cognitive meaning. (c) Finally, when C1
is seen as satisfied; then we have the application of the semantic-cognitive
rule, which can be symbolized as C1 & [{C1 ˅ C2 ˅… ˅Cn} ~> R] ~> E.
This fulfilled R inevitably produces A as a referentialawareness, which would be nothing
other than R’s availability for reasoning and action, its transmission to the
mind’s global workspace, brain celebrity, etc. given by theories of
consciousness.

It is interesting to note the proximity between our conclusion and
inferentialist approaches to meaning. If we say that a content, a
semantic-cognitive rule, is available for reasoning and action, we also mean
that the content (which is in itself inferential) would be inferentially open to any related content. This is what I believe
can be understood as the cognitiveeffect of the satisfaction of the semantic-cognitive
rule. However, I will not risk mixing this inferential openness proper of the
cognitive awareness of content with the real meaning, because inferential
openness is a consequence of the instantiation of referential or cognitive
meaning, which is won through the application of its often implicit
semantic-cognitive inferential rules.

Finally, as already noted, a semantic-cognitive rule can be (b) only regarded or conceived in its
application, only imaginatively applied to some extent, or (c) effectively applied in its domain. This
can be explained:

Concerning (b):
propositions or thoughts merely regarded in the absence of their judication,
without attribution of truth-value. This is an imaginary rehearsal of the true application. Here the cognitive meaning, say,
the verifiability rule, can only be regarded. But this does not mean that
propositions or thoughts are statically regarded as abstract entities. What is
meant is that they are applied in our imagination, even if only in a limited way,
with the result that we make ourselves aware of the semantic-cognitive content
as an occurrence of a rule-in-its-applicability. This already makes us to a
certain extent aware of the previsible effects E. Since we are using it as an
instrument in the search for the possible consequences of its satisfaction, we
need not be reflexively aware of the relation C ~> R.

Concerning (c): here
semantic-cognitive rules are effectively (and not only in rehearsal) applied in
a chosen domain. In this case, if as a result we spell a sentence internally,
adding to it a judicative value and we associate this cognitive application of
the rule with its spelling, we ultimately have an assertion: a statement
spelling out a sentence whose content is accepted as true. Notice that which is
judged or asserted is the whole content: the verifiability rule along with the
satisfaction of its criteria.

The relavance of these remarks isn’t
clear enough now, but I think that they will gradually justify themselves in
the course of this book.

13. What is wrong with the private language argument?

The
private language argument (Wittgenstein 1984c, I, sec. 244-271) is open to a
variety of interpretations. I will reconstruct this ‘argument’ here in a way
that makes its results as philosophically strong as would be reasonably
possible, deriving from it the destruction of human subjectivity as it is
currently understood, along with its understanding in traditional philosophy. A
private language argument with trivial conclusions would be of scant interest.
Anyway, I still believe that this interpretation is the most faithful to the
author’s intention.

We can begin with the contrasting case: public physicalist language. How
do we learn to identify and distinguish different types of physical objects?
For example: how does a child learn to identify references of the word ‘ball’?
This doesn’t happen by means of verbal definitions, but by ostension: adults
point to examples and say things like, ‘This is a ball’ or ‘That isn’t a
ball’... and the child eventually learns what types of objects are round balls.
But this learning is only confirmed when a new ball is presented and the child
shows adults that it is able to re-identify the object as belonging to
the type ball. In this case, based on agreement among other speakers of the
language regarding correct re-identification,
it is possible for everyone (adults and their children) to know that the child
has learned the rule for identifying ball-type objects. That is, we ultimately
know that we have learned a rule after our way of application is confirmed by
interpersonal checking.

Consider now what happens when we try to identify internal mental
entities of a phenomenal nature. In this case, we cannot do any checking of
interpersonal re-identifications. Suppose that a person is expected to learn to
identify an internal state, for example, a feeling of pain. Other people cannot
teach her to do this, because they cannot know if and when she feels pain or
how it feels to her. But let’s suppose that independently of any public
language someone decides to point inwardly to some feeling and identifies his
feeling through a sign that he himself has invented. Suppose this sign is ‘P’
(for ‘pain’). Imagine now that the next time he feels pain, he says to himself
‘P’, intending to point to the same internal mental state. In this case he
won’t be able to know if he is really pointing to the same phenomenal
state that he initially pointed to, because there are no other speakers who can
check the correctness of his rule application, i.e., who are able to confirm or
refute his identification. As Wittgenstein realized, intersubjective criteria of
correction are missing here, and where such criteria do not exist, we cannot
distinguish between following a rule and the mere impression of following a
rule (1984c, I, sec. 258).
However, this distinction is indispensable because without it we have no way to
construct something that we may effectively call ‘a rule’.

Since language is a system of rules, the generalization of this result
leads us to the radical conclusion that there cannot be a language whose
objects of reference are internal phenomenal states. The only construable
language is one based on behavioral expressions
of internal states. Wittgenstein concedes the existence of these mental states,
rejecting behaviorism, in my without achieving coherence, since if this is the
case, mental states should be beyond the reach of linguistic rules and
therefore cognitively unspeakable and in the end senseless, once he agrees that
something about which nothing can be said is worth about as much as nothing.

The problem, as Ernst Tugendhat once told me, is that the private
language argument is too counterintuitive to be correct. The point, however, is
to discover where the weakness of the argument lies. In order to find this, we
need to make two things clear. The first is that we will only stop regarding a
rule as a rule, if we conclude that it is logically impossible to
correct it. A rule does not cease to be a rule just because for some contingent
reason it was not in fact interpersonally checked. After all, it is an
indisputable fact that many of the rules we follow, for one reason or another,
have never been interpersonally checked. I can invent for myself the rule of
never eating creamed spinach and nobody needs to be informed of this rule.
There are rules that for merely circumstantial reasons cannot be checked, such
as those made by a shipwrecked sailor who is never rescued and consequently
lives and eventually dies alone on a remote uninhabited island.

The objection that could be made to this interpretation is that
Wittgenstein’s argument demands that any rule, in order to be a rule, must be
publicly checked for correctness, and not just be able to be publicly corrected (correctable). Even if this
interpretation were true, it would be uninteresting. For it expresses only an
absurdly implausible and methodologically anti-Wittgensteinian idea: it would
jeopardize our commonsense certainty that we are able to follow rules that have
not yet been checked by others. In fact, overstating skepticism, it would also
be possible to argue that no rule can be applied in situations where it cannot
be subjected to simultaneous intersubjective correction – after all, there is
no guarantee that in the absence of this control the rule will be correctly
interpreted and applied... However, this gratuitous skepticism is too
implausible to tempt us.

With this in mind, let us now interpret Wittgenstein’s argument as
assuming that the rules of a phenomenal language must be logicallyincorrigible. Let’s suppose that every
morning when waking up I unintentionally and unthinkingly follow the rule to
remind myself of the first sentence of Dante’s DivineComedy, but
that I always immediately forget doing this. Here we are already close to
nonsense, and we would be there if it could be proved to be logically
impossible to know if this happens...

We conclude that it is the assumed logical incorrigibility of phenomenal
language that gives the private language argument its plausibility: it seems
very plausible to assume that a rule that logically cannot be corrected cannot
be considered a rule. If the rules of our (supposedly) private phenomenal
language are logically incorrigible, it seems that they cannot, ultimately, be
distinguished from mere impressions of rules.

This reconstruction of Wittgenstein’s argument is not only the most
interesting and reasonable, it also uncovers what I believe to be an important
implicit assumption made by him. Once he noted, for instance, that even though
person A’s nervous system could be linked to that of person B, so that A could
feel a wasp stinging B’s hand, only the location of pain would be shared, but
not the pain itself, because pain felt by A would be A’s pain, while pain felt
by B would still be B’s pain (Wittgenstein 1986: 54). In his most famous
article, surely read by Wittgenstein, Frege noted that if another person could
enter our minds to observe a visual representation, the representation she
experienced would be herown and not ours (Frege 1892: 30). Such
considerations lead us to a dogma generally assumed by earlier Twentieth
Century analytical philosophers: the thesis that phenomenal states are
logically non-sharable.[16] If this thesis is correct,
then interpersonal corrigibility of phenomenal language would be logically
impossible, which would support the private language argument.

At this point, all we need to destroy the private language argument’s
foundation is to show that the logical non-sharability of phenomenal states is
a false principle. That is, we need to show that although the rules of a
phenomenal language have never been intersubjectively corrected, they are
– contrary to what Wittgenstein and many philosophers assumed – logicallycorrigible from an interpersonal perspective, this being the hidden flaw
that tacitly supports the private language argument.

It’s hard to imagine a thought-experiment showing that phenomenal states
are logically shareable. We can begin by making an analogy with computers.
Suppose A and B are updated versions of the primitive kind of automata called
by Grey Walter machinaspeculatrix, which fed on light and spent
their lives in search of it. Suppose automaton A meets automaton B, and that A
is able to read the information content that B has accumulated in its
searching. Although automaton A can copy these data first, and only afterwards
read them in his own system, so that such ‘contents of experience’ become an
unshared part of itself, there is no contradiction in thinking that A can read
these ‘contents’ directly in B, as if they were its own, thereby sharing
them with automaton B! This would in fact be the simplest and most direct
method. Why should we think that in a similar situation we humans would need to
be different from machines?

Perhaps it is even possible to imagine that someday there will be two
human beings, A* and B*, who somehow share some functioning of parts of their
brains. Suppose that their limbic system is essentially the same, while the
neocortical regions of A* and B* remain distinct. Now, it seems conceivable
that a mental state of pain that occurs in relevant parts of the same limbic
system could be shared by subjects A* and B*, even though their conscious
interpretation of pain, made in their distinct neocortical regions, are
quantitatively different. If we understand pain essentially as a process occurring
in a limbic system, then A* and B* really could share the same pain,
demonstrating possible interpersonal checking of the same internal phenomenal
state.

The thought-experiments considered above suggest that it is logically
possible to distinguish:

(a)the subjective interpretation of a
phenomenal mental state x

from

(b)
the phenomenal mental state x in
itself.

This separation in fact seems to be
possible. We know cases of hypnosis where people are led to feel pains that do
not exist or the case of a patient at the dentist who, because he is afraid of
treatment, believes he feels pain when he really only feels the sensation of
friction…

Now, if we accept that it is logically possible to separate (a) and (b),
then the intersubjective sharing of mental phenomenal states also turns out to
be logically possible, which at least in principle makes possible
intersubjective checks of identifying rules for mental states. In this case,
the private language argument fails because the logical unsharability of
phenomenal states is a false principle. The rules of phenomenal language
acquire an epistemic status similar to the rule I made for myself of never
eating creamed spinach again; both could in principle be checked. Consequently,
we are entitled to assume that
what we now believe to be the rules
of our phenomenal language may in fact be the actual rules, since they are at
least logically susceptible to interpersonal correction.

Furthermore, we are also entitled to say that the rules for the
identification of phenomenal states are highlyprobable, since this probability is
very well confirmed in an indirect way by a multitude of systematically related
associations between interpersonally accessible physical phenomena and reports
of internal phenomenal occurrences. For example: if wrinkling the forehead is
often associated with repeating the statement ‘I am feeling pain’ when one
believes one has a feeling x,
wrinkling the forehead indirectly reinforces the probability that when applied
the words really refer to the same feeling. Our case is not different from the
case of concluding, based on a large amount of convincing circumstantial
(indirect) evidence, that a person was in fact murdered by a psychopath. Even
if no one actually saw the murder taking place, a great quantity of
circumstantial evidence could be rightly seen by a jury as inductively mutually
reinforcing, and taken together as highly convincing. (Costa 2011, ch. 5)

14. Concluding remarks

Returning to our initial question
about the nature of the intermediate link, we can now more clearly see why and
how the intermediate link between words and things can be read in two different
complementary modes, either in the psychological mode, or in the semantic mode
in which particular bearers of a link and their psychological singularities are
left aside.[17]
That is: cognitive meanings are semantic-cognitive rules, which can be
considered in their possible or effective application and that when regarded in
terms of their conditions of satisfaction can be called criterial rules. As
will be seen in chapter 5, the cognitive meaning of a statement should be
nothing but a verifiability rule that
really applies when some criterial configuration required by it is adequately
satisfied, making the statement true.[18]

Nonetheless, it is important to maintain a clear distinction between
semantic and psychological, as philosophers like Frege and Husserl insisted.
The semantic is conventionally grounded and grammatically necessary; the
psychological is spatio-temporally given and physically contingent. But
contrary to what these philosophers have supposed, nothing semantic can really
exist outside of cognitive
instantiations. Semantic entities are nothing more than conventional structures
that exist only when embodied in mental acts, even if considered in abstraction
from their contingent bearers. To assume that semantic entities can exist
without any psychological basis is to hypostasize their nature.[19]

[1] If I am right, this semantic versus cognitive dichotomy can be traced
at least as far back as Aristotle, who viewed the intermediary link as an
affection of soul (ton en têi psychêi
pathêmáton) or thought (noêmata)
– a psychological perspective – while the Stoics, who appealed to ‘what is said’ (lectón) or ‘what is meant’ (semainómenon), associated the
intermediary link in some way with language – a semanticist view. (Manetti
1993: 93 ff.)

[2]Of course one could
also do the same thing without drawing on color memory: suppose that people
carry with them templates of vermilion and when necessary compare the patches
of color they see with these templates. This exemplifies the indispensability
of the existence of some empirically given model.

[3]Qualitativeidentity is
the identity between different things; it is opposed to numericidentity, which
is the identity of a thing with itself.

[4] It is true that this last
‘any’ allows us to infer that there is a class, the class of all tokens that
are qualitative identical, but this class does not belong to the definition and
does not need to be known by anyone.

[5] As the earlier Wittgenstein
wrote: ‘The name means its object. The object is its meaning.’ (1093c sec.
3.203).

[6] The view was ironized by
Gilbert Ryle as the ‘Fido-Fido’ theory of meaning (1957).

[7] As Russell recognizes,
logical atomism was first suggested by Wittgenstein, who defended it in a
full-fledged way in his Tractatus
Logico-Philosophicus.

[8] This kind of difficulty
already appears clearly in the final public discussion of Russell’s speech in
‘The Philosophy of Logical Atomism’, 1994: 203. (For criticism see Tugendhat
1976: 382 and Kripke 2013: 15-16.)

[9] See my discussion
of Wittgenstein’s private language argument later in this chapter.

[10] One could object that since
there are many different shades of red (one of them being vermilion), red
cannot be simple. But with Wittgenstein we can answer that what we call
‘simple’ depends on whatever system we have adopted: we can use an old language
game with only three basic colors: red, yellow and blue. Here red will be
considered simple; and in this case. distinct shades of red will not be taken
into account, even if they are perceptually distinguishable. Instead of being
qualitatively identical to the pattern, a new red patch must only be sufficientlyidentical, as far as possible given the limits determined by the
other two colors.

[11] Language not only has a communicational function, but also an organizational
function, in the sense that we also use it to think, to organize our ideas and
our plans of action (Vygotsky). At first sight, the identification of meaning
with use doesn’t seem to do justice to its organizational function. But it
doesn’t have to do so. It makes sense to say that when I think that the Leaning
Tower of Pizza could fall, I am using
this name referentially in my mind, in thought, in a dialogue with myself.

[12] See (Costa 1995, ch. 1).The assumption that
grounds my reconstruction is that Wittgenstein was not making repeated attempts
to explain the nature of meaning which always ended in some kind of failure,
being then replaced by another, as some interpreters seem to believe. What he did
was to develop different approximative, often analogical suggestions, each
addressing the same issue from a new perspective, such suggestions being
largely complementary, each with the other. In this way, it is possible to find
continuity in Wittgenstein’s semantic conceptions, which began with the Notebooks
1914-1916 and ended with On Certainty.

[15] C. S. Peirce’s view, according to which all thought
is in signs, seems to be wrong when we consider that we are effectively able to
think without using words. But it is plausible that in having these thoughts we
are unconsciously using signs that are, if not linguistic, at least imagetic or
emotive.

[17] While semantic theories like
that of Davidson fall short of the mark, the Gricean psychological theory of
meaning misses the mark. H. P. Grice suggests that the meaning of the speaker’s utterance p is the recognition by
its hearer of the speaker’s intention to say p. What he thereby
elucidates is not the cognitive meaning of utterance p, but only part of the procedure whereby the same meaning is
communicated. (See Grice 1991, ch. 5, 6, 14, 18) In Lesson 14 of his Vorlesungen
zur Einführung in die sprachanalytische Philosophie, Ernst Tugendhat
convincingly criticizes Grice’s attempts to explain the meaning of utterances
in this way.

[18] Note that there are
non-referential cognitive rules: we can have rules that relate (a) the
empirical data to cognitions, (b) cognitions to other cognitions, and (c)
cognitions to actions. But as to the issue of reference, what matters is the
first kind of rule, which is responsible for referential meaning.

[19] As I see it, there are a
variety of ways to make this hypostasis. One of them is to identify
sense/meaning with Platonic entities (Frege, Husserl); another (already
criticized in the appendix to chapter 2) is to identify linguistic meaning with
essential kinds of external things (Kripke, Putnam); another is to identify
meaning with minimum units of reference (Russell); and yet another is to
identify meaning with psychological intentions (Grice).

Non terrae plus ultra...

I am a kind of curious hedonist hermit who entertains the phantasy of having gathered (from many sources...) one or two keys to a better philosophical understanding of some aspects of reality. I am full professor in the Defil./UFRN and (often) CNPq researcher. My main published text is "Lines of Thought: Rethinking Philosophical Assumptions" (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014). Presently I am writting ba book called "Philosophical Semantics" to be published by CSP. In the blog textosdefilosofiacontemporanea.blogspot.com you can find most texts, drafts etc.